Life With Tenure: Not What You Think

Tim Cook for The Chronicle

By Anna Neumann

What happens to university professors after they get tenure?
Here are two popular images:

Image No. 1: They spend little time in their classrooms,
laboratories, and offices. They are less accountable—and less
connected—to their students, colleagues, fields of study, and
professions than they were before tenure. They relax, maybe too
much.

Image No. 2: Although they are free and unfettered to do
research, write, and think as intellectuals, few professors live up
to